The community economy

It can be defined as the pooling of resources for the collective enjoyment of
the people who interact, without accounting for the flow of trade. It
functions under spontaneous reciprocity, relationships of affinity, mutual
aid, and high levels of trust; without expecting compensation in return for
what has been shared.

Some ecovillages and repopulated cores spent years functioning with a
community economy such that all members of the community held their income
and expenses in common with the aim of covering their basic needs. This is
the case, for example, of Lakabe,
in the valley of Artzibar, Euskalherria.

In many places they include free clothing stores and all sorts of second-hand
goods, which are left behind and taken without any sort of auditing. The
freestores, like libraries but for any sort of thing, are collective
warehouses where everyone leaves what they only use occasionally in order
that other people can also use it.

Community gardens, resistance boxes [places where people can deposit extra
money, or get money when they’re in need, named from their use during labor
strikes], public free meals, are among the other ongoing or periodic examples
that show us how a market-free economy is not a utopia but increasingly a
part of our reality.

Barter

Non-monetary acts of the exchange of goods, services, and know-how. A direct
verbal agreement between the offerer and bidder that satisfies the claims of
both parties in relation to the fairness of the exchange.

Multi-reciprocal barter: Alternative currencies

Alternative or local currencies are a tool that goes beyond direct exchange,
faciliting multi-reciprocal exchanges and establishing value for goods,
services, and know-how that are exchanged. They are also part of the key to
relocalizing the economy, promoting human relationships and economies of
proximity at the local and bioregional level. It generates a social market
open only to activites that incorporate ethical, ecological, and social
criteria that permit all people to interact fairly and without middlemen.

Alternative currencies are an opportunity to reduce the hegemony of
capitalism. They could gradually replace the euro while guaranteeing
abundance, as each individual participates in the creation of resources to
meet collective needs, putting their skills and know-how at the service of
the community.

An exchange network can be put into motion by a small, critical mass (30–40
people near or far would be sufficient) who associate at the local level to
boost economic relations based on trust and proximity, over a range of
bioregional action.

As a tool of the transition that inevitably coexists with the capitalist
economy, we must promote a mixed system in which the
LETS
system and the exchange of money complement each other. The
LETS
(Local Exchange Trading System) system establishes the guidelines for
promoting networks of local exchange in which there is no interest on the
exchanges. Currency is generated when an exchange takes place (the bidder has
a positive balance equal to the agreed value of the exhange, and the claimer
is dinged with an equivalent negative balance), permitting a deficit
according to the rules of the network.

When it comes to currency exchange, it is usually allowed to change official
money (Euro) for liberated money but not the reverse, since the undertaken
path is to reduce the hegemony of the capitalist economy.

In addition we mention the transparency required for this new way of
understanding the economy based on trust. For this, we use the virtual
systems of administrating networks of exchange, which are nothing more than
internet software applications and that serve to register the exchanges.

These software applications are much like those used in banks to manage our
accounts, with the difference that the basic data of balances and transactions
are accessible to all members of the network.

The systems that are supported by the exchange of paper money are essentially
fragile, besides the danger of counterfeiting and the cost of printing the
currency, they hide fluctuations that occur in the system because we do not
know the quantity of money that each person has.

The CES
(Community Exchange System) is a management system for alternative currency
(online software) with more than 10 years behind it, developed in South
Africa. It has thousands of users and more than 500 exchange networks spread
throughout the world. The diverse integrated cooperatives and bioregional
networks of exchange (Ecoxarxes) that exist so far in the
state are being the drivers of
CES
up to the point where in three years there are already 150
CES
networks in the state, being far and away the most prolific place in the
world in this system of exchange. However, despite its potential, this
software has some weaknesses that limit its expansion and use, so that a more
intuitive and agile version is in the works for their next version: the
Integral
CES.
See www.ces.org.za
and www.integralces.net.

The transitory relationship with the capitalist economy

To construct a counter-economy is a necessary duty if we want to expel the
capitalist economy from our lives. It is evident that for many of the
projects of transition we need injections of euros in order to set them in
motion. To make use of the capitalist economic resources of a legal character
(wages, unemployment, inheritances, scholarships) may not be enough, and
here we come to the role of actions of economic disobedience that we have
discussed in these pages.

This is a question about which we have to define our own strategy, on a case
by case basis. At last, we will have reference to a method that can be very
useful for driving the process of transition previously expounded:
crowdfunding or collective microfinance.

Crowdfunding is a system of co-financing of projects and initiatives through
collective cooperation, where each individual acts as a “patron” by providing
some amount of money to drive some project.

Its primary mission is to promote, beyond the individual rewards in exchange
for donations, the creation of common goods promoting liberated knowledge.
Some examples of this type of platform are
www.goteo.org or
www.verkami.com.

Among those on the point of launching is
Coopfunding.net specifically for helping
cooperative and self-managed projects, which has already been used in the
Beta period for the “Prison Cannot Hold Disobedience” campaign which, among
other projects, has served to assist in the dissemination of this handbook.

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